126 Phoridae. 



vein abbreviated in a shorter or longer distance from the margin 

 and upon the whole weak and indistinct, in some cases quite im- 

 developed (in lugubris ? reaching indistinctly to the margin). 



The developmental stages were hitherto not known, but for several 

 species it may be induced what the larva feeds upon. Tr. opaca has been 

 found on exhumed human bodies; perennis has been found in coffms 

 (Hofmann, Munch. med. Wochenschr. 1886 and Ann. Soc. Ent. de 

 Belg. XXX, 1886, C. R. CXXXI), and Becker mentions (Die Phoriden 

 77) opaca (probably it is perennis) as taken in abundance on a church- 

 yard, creeping out from the ground. Wood mentions perennis and 

 vitrea from carrion and trinervis from carrion and rotten fungi. The 

 American species microcephala Loew and fratercula Brues have been 

 obtained, the former from dead caterpillars, the latter in nest of 

 Vespa germanica (Malloch, Proceed. U. S. Nat. Mus. 43, 1912, 412). 

 Finally Schmitz notes (Ent. Ber. Nederl. Ent. Vereen. V, 1918, 76) 

 that intempesta was taken on a dead fowl. I have myself examined 

 pupæ of sublugubris taken in an old nest of a Vespa on ^/é, they devel- 

 oped on ^Ve— ^Ve, and further larvæ of the same species taken numer- 

 ously in the nest of Vespa media on ^"/s and developing on ^"/e — ^^U 

 next year. — The larva is almost cylindrical, a little flattened, it is 

 attenuating anteriorly, but truncate behind; the colour is white or 

 whitish. For the rest it is rather similar to the larva of A. rufipes as 

 described by Keilin; the whole dorsal surface is set with chitinous 

 teeth which are curved backwards, on prothorax they are small 

 or nearly wanting; further there is a number of conical, spine-like 

 papillæ in transverse rows on the segments; of such papillæ pro- 

 thorax shows four, meso- and metathorax six each; each abdominal 

 segment is divided into three distinct corrugations separated by 

 furrows, and each segment bears eight papillæ, four on the posterior 

 corrugation lying two on each side of the middle, and four on the 

 middle corrugation lying towards the sides, the lateral being pleural; 

 on the seventh abdominal segment the row of papillæ is a little convex 

 behind, following the dorsal outline of the segment; the eighth ab- 

 dominal segment is obliquely truncated above and bears round 

 the margin eight papillæ; the posterior spiracles lie above in the 

 middle; on the ventral surface each abdominal segment shows two 

 large, somewhat bladder-like prominences, one on each side of the 

 middle; each prominence is a little divided longitudinally; outwards 

 to each prominence is a similar, but small and slightly pronounced 

 elevation. At the posterior margin of prothorax lie the anterior 



